Peacock cushion

I dug this pretty peacock out of a bin of $5 fabric scraps at the Laura Ashley warehouse sale last week.

It came home with me, plus a bunch of velvet fabric samples they were selling at 5 for $1 (and a few other things). I’d previously discovered that their cotton/viscose furnishing velvet feels lovely and lasts well.

The unembroidered sections of the peacock piece were floppy loosely woven cotton, whereas the embroidery was stiff. There was also some wrinkling between embroidered bits that I couldn’t press out. So I backed the whole thing with some mid weight cotton/linen and coursely machine quilted the two together, avoiding stitching over the peacock. This gave the floppy bits more body and camouflaged the wrinkly bits by giving all the unembroidered cloth more texture.

The back is pieced from four of the velvet samples and has shiny shell buttons for a closure. The cushion inner is a cut down feather pillow that once belonged to my grandparents. The dimensions match another pillow that I once made to fit on a folding chair, but has since been recovered a couple of times.

Here is the finished thing from the front. Not bad for $5.80 plus some stash and time.